“I will avoid lengthy words, and will make use of those terms which workers commonly use today.” said Palladio echoing his solid, unshowy architectural philosophy.

The Italian Renaissance master Andrea Palladio, born Andrea di Pietro della Gondola on the 30th of November, 1508 in Padua, is to architecture what Pablo Picasso is to painting.

With a mix of his meticulous study of the buildings of Ancient Rome and his own insights, he graciously created a straightforward approach to design that builders anywhere could follow.

Chances are your own home reflects “Palladian” ideas! But in the odd event you have not seen that Palladio has been also part of your life thus far, here you have the four characteristics that make a Palladian building be:

1. – symmetry in planning and façades

2. – a concentration on proportion: the use of ratios, such as 1:2, 2:3, or 3:4, in solids and voids and their relation to the human form

3. – a delight in the use of the classical Orders

4. – the typical Palladian (or Venetian) windows

Aside from his humble origins, another of Palladio’s troubles was the contemporary style he had been born into: the lavish baroque. However, Palladio showed how it was possible to shape a form of architecture that seemed almost timeless. Informed by mathematical logic, it was highly crafted and immensely practical building skilled, rich in terms of its ideas, and lacked any over-elaborate decoration.

Even today, there are architects, like Quinlan and Francis Terry, who continue to work in a tradition descended from Palladio.

Check this interview to Arata Isozaki, part of the Andrea Palladio through the eyes of contemporary architects series.

Hopefully, the buildings Palladio built and inspired will continue to serve – and delight – us for the next hundreds or thousands of years and beyond.